The Los Angeles metro area is the nation’s ninth-most expensive city in which to operate a corporate headquarters, something that makes it vulnerable to relocation efforts by other states, according a new study.

Maintaining a headquarters operation in the Los Angeles/Long Beach area costs $42.1million annually, said the study by The Boyd Co. Inc., which provides relocation consulting to major corporations.

In contrast, the least expensive metro area is Indianapolis/Carmel/Fishers, Ind., where the cost is $35.7 million, and the highest is New York at $47.2 million.

The economic environment is now ripe for lower-cost states to try to poach corporate headquarters, said John Boyd, a principal at the Princeton, N.J.-based company.

“Really it’s the next big area across the corporate spectrum for cost cutting and rebranding,” Boyd said. “Companies today are into rebranding themselves as being fiscally prudent. Other states are now targeting California.”

A few years ago Nevada and Arizona were popular destinations. Now Indiana and other low-cost Midwestern states look attractive, Boyd said.

The Los Angeles area – and California – offer a target-rich environment for these kinds of recruitment efforts.

There are 15 Fortune 500 firms in the Los Angeles/Long Beach area.

DirecTV and Mattel call El Segundo home and Molina Healthcare is in Long Beach.

Four of the firms are in the San Fernando Valley and the nearby region – The Walt Disney Co. in Burbank, Health Net in Woodland Hills, Dole Foods in Westlake Village and Amgen in Thousand Oaks.

Avery Dennison and Jacobs Engineering Group are in Pasadena and Edison International is in Rosemead.

California is home to 50 Fortune 500 companies.

This is the first time Boyd has done this type of cost analysis. It is based on a 100,000-square-foot corporate head office employing 500 workers.

Boyd is presenting the findings today to four area companies considering a move.

He declined to identify them.

The state has long been viewed as a harsh place for businesses. And that reputation will be enhanced if voters approve Propositions 30 and 38 on the November ballot. Both are tax increases.

The Los Angeles metro area has taken hits in the past. In 2010 aerospace giant Northrop Grumman announced it was moving to Falls Church, Va. A year earlier, Hilton Hotels Corp. left Beverly Hills for Tysons Corner, Va.

“Historically off the table in corporate re-engineering and cost-cutting plans, the head office location is as vulnerable for relocation and restructuring as any other company facility in today’s cost-driven, global economy,” Boyd said in the study.

These kinds of operations are important to a major metro area like this, said Kimberly Ritter-Martinez, associate economist at the Kyser Center for Economic Research at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

“If a lot of them start leaving, it would be something we would have to worry about,” she said. “They employ highly skilled and well-compensated workers, and they purchase a lot of high-end professional services.

“Also local governments like corporate headquarters because they have a lot of highly paid workers and that means these people are paying more in taxes and they tend to be bigger consumers.”

Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Matt Karatz of the Office of Economic and Business Policy said in an email that officials are aware of the issue and trying to correct it.

“We are committed to turning around years of apathy toward business in L.A., but it takes smart long-term policies to change structures and perceptions. We are making city government an ally to business, not an obstacle, by reforming our business tax, cutting red tape, and providing customer service for all businesses,” he wrote.

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